Paris attacks victims to file charges against government

The victims of the Paris attacks last year, intended to file charges against the French government, their lawyer has said.

Maitre Samia Maktouf, a lawyer defending 17 victims of Paris terror attacks on November 13 last year that left about 130 people dead and over 250 injured, on Tuesday said her clients intended to file charges against the government, Xinhua news agency reported.

“We will do everything to obtain the condemnation of the French government for failing to prevent the action of the terrorists, while some of them were under judicial supervision,” said the lawyer.

At the same time, the report of the parliamentary committee of inquiry on terrorism was delivered to French President Francois Hollande, the report said.

According to the media, the committee’s report said one of the suicide bomber of the Bataclan Theatre visited Syria in September despite the judicial supervision put into place after his indictment for a failed attempt to head for Yemen in 2012.

The French government has been condemned for negligence by the administrative court of Nimes (Gard) in the case of master corporal Abel Chennouf who was assassinated in March 2012 by Mohamed Merah in Montauban (Tarn-et-Garonne), France.

French Interior Minister Bernard Cazeneuve expressed his reservation concerning some suggestions of the committee’s report on Tuesday, namely, the creation of a new intelligence agency and the fusion of some terrorist monitoring systems.

“This prudence regarding the creation of new structures results in a will to exempt the intelligence service from undergoing perpetual process of reforms without guaranteed substantial gain in efficiency,” said the official.

“In fact, these services have already been subject to numerous reorganisations in the past few months to adjust their practice to a particularly high and constantly changing threat. Moreover, in this context, the urgency of the situation drives them to focus on the protection of the French citizens,” he said.

Cazeneuve has talked to the president of the association of the attack victims in order to outline French government’s position on questions related to counter-terrorism efforts.